


Shimmy Down the Chimney, Baby

by Overnighter



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Angst and Humor, Coming Out, High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-28
Updated: 2012-10-28
Packaged: 2017-11-17 05:00:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/547878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Overnighter/pseuds/Overnighter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pete hasn't been Patrick's bandmate for very long, certainly not long enough to be sneaking into his room, and finding out secrets that Patrick might not have wanted to share.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shimmy Down the Chimney, Baby

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pouncer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pouncer/gifts).



“Hey, Patrick!” 

Patrick jumped about ten feet into the air as he opened the door to his bedroom. Of course Pete was sitting on his unmade bed, sneakers still on his feet even though they were too big, and already untied. 

Pete had some sort of stealth mom powers – an invisible force field that made mothers and other responsible adults overlook the fact that he was a total degenerate with a half-sleeve of ragged tattoos and badly-straightened hair; that he was a college senior, still hanging out with boys in high school. Patrick’s mom fucking loved him. She probably let him in. 

“Goddammit, Pete, we talked about this...” he started, but Pete simply cocked his head up at Patrick, eyes wide. 

“Language, little man. Your mother is downstairs, probably baking us cookies right now if your outburst hasn’t ruined it for us. Also - little pitchers, buddy.” 

He clapped his hands over the battered, fuzzy ears of - Oh God, Patrick didn’t care if Pete was going to make him a rock star, he was going to fucking kill him dead. 

“I am going to fucking kill you dead, Pete. What are you doing with hi- what are you doing with _that_?” he asked angrily. 

Pete looked up from the stuffed animal sitting in the vee of his lap, his too wide, too bright grin firmly in place. 

“Me? I was just chatting with the little dude. I see now why you’ve had such a hard time admitting I’m your best friend. You’ve been holding out on me. He’s a hard nut to crack, though. Won’t give up your secrets, won’t even tell me his name.”

Patrick dumped his messenger bag onto his already-overflowing desk chair and made an ineffectual grab for the koala. Pete moved it deftly out of his way, holding it up in front of his face and talking in a high-pitched voice that Patrick suspected was supposed to sound cute. It didn’t. It was fucking creepy. 

“Patrick, why won’t you tell Pete my name? He’s been so lonely here without you.” 

Patrick made another lunge while Pete’s eyes were covered by pilled fur, and tugged the bear out of Pete’s hands. To his surprise, Pete let it go without protest. Patrick gave the koala an absent pat on the head, soothing his ruffled fur down between his ears. 

“Charles,” he muttered, trying not to notice when Pete’s grin – impossibly – widened further. 

“Charles,” Pete repeated, then tipped forward on the bed to reach out and shake a misshapen paw. “Charles, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Pete. I’ll be taking over best friend duties from now on.” 

Patrick just sighed, and bent over to find the dented cardboard box where Charles was supposed to be hidden under his bed. To think, there had been a point when hanging out with Pete Wentz of Arma Angelus had sounded like a _good_ thing. 

He found the box half-shoved under his trailing blankets, the lid askew and the contents atip. 

“We’ve talked about this before. You can't just come over when I’m not here. You can’t just go through my stuff, Pete. It’s fucking creepy.” 

Patrick thought it was a measure of how long he’d known Pete now that his voice came out resigned rather than angry. 

“It’s not creepy,” Pete protested, waving goodbye absently as Patrick placed Charles back in the box and shoved it further under his bed, “I was _bored_ , and I was trying to get to know you.” He smiled and patted the inch of dirty sheet beside him. “So really, it’s your fault for being so late and for being so shy.” 

Patrick groaned, but nevertheless sat down beside Pete on the bed. 

“I’m not late,” he protested, “I didn’t actually know you were coming." 

Pete looked mildly affronted at that. 

“We have practice,” he said. 

“Tonight. After dinner. It’s four-thirty in the afternoon. Why the hell would I think you would be here?” 

Pete bumped into his shoulder and shrugged. 

“It’s Practice Day. Of course I want to spend every minute of it with you,” he said. “I figured you’d know that, like, instinctively. So when you didn’t show right away, I used my time in the most efficient way I knew how – bonding with your mom, and doing a little exploration of the inner workings of one Patrick M. Stumph.” 

Patrick shook his head, catching himself just in time as he started to smile. That way lay madness. 

“Speaking of, what is my mom doing home, anyway? And how did you talk her into making you cookies? That’s, like, serious cooking for her. I mean, Easy Mac is pretty serious cooking for her. That shit’s fucking advanced.” 

Pete glanced away from him for a second, and Patrick watched as his smile faltered for just a moment before returning as bright as ever. 

“Um, maybe there was a little bit of a mix up with the alarm company? And she was worried that I was traumatized by, like, the police and all?” 

Patrick groaned and flopped onto his back on the bed. The force of the motion knocked his hat askew on his head, blocking his view of the old plastic stars his dad had affixed on his ceiling years before. 

“Oh, my God, Pete. You tried to break in and tripped the alarm? Were you dropped on your head as a child, like, a whole lot? ‘Cause I gotta tell you, your mom doesn’t seem that careless,” Patrick said. 

Pete flopped down next to him, making the twin bed shake beneath Patrick momentarily. 

“Hey, cool! Stars. I told you mom about the mix up with the spare key, and she was fine with it.” 

Patrick sighed, and put his forearm over his eyes. 

"What mix up with the spare key?" he asked, almost against his will. 

"I don't have one." 

“That’s because I didn’t give you a key.” 

“Exactly,” Pete agreed. 

“That wasn’t a mix up, Pete. That was an act of self-preservation.” 

Pete nudged against his side, and Patrick sucked in his belly automatically, but it just seemed that Pete caught him with a random elbow as he flipped onto his side. 

“Don’t be like that, my little lunchbox. I’ve got it all under control now.”

Patrick removed his hand from his eyes reluctantly. Pete was prying something out of the front pocket of his too-tight jeans, and Patrick didn’t even need to see it to know that it was a key to the front door. Of course. 

“So now I can visit whenever I want! It’s awesome,” he assured Patrick. 

“Awesome,” Patrick echoed without inflection, and Pete rolled back over onto his back, nodding. 

They lay side by side in silence for several minutes. It smelled faintly like burning chocolate, and Patrick was trying to decide whether or not to get up and investigate when Pete tipped into him again, his face looming over Patrick’s at an odd angle. 

“Hey, hey, Patrick,” he asked in what Patrick suspected for him passed as a whisper, “You know I wouldn’t – I’m just trying to get to know you better. I mean, you could tell me stuff, if you wanted. I don’t – I sort of come off like a spazz, but I’m cool, really.” 

Patrick raised an eyebrow, but Pete’s face seemed serious, his brows knitted together. Patrick sighed. 

“It’s not that I don’t trust you – although if you use that key to break in and rifle though my shit again I won’t – I’m just...I’m not like you. I’m - some stuff is private, is all,” he said gently. 

“I get that,” Pete agreed, his face still solemn, but Patrick shook his head. 

“No, you really don’t. Everyone knows everything about you – your parents, people online, the whole scene – it’s cool, but it’s not really my thing.” 

Pete nodded again, though, looking so earnest that Patrick was starting to get worried. 

“But some stuff – some stuff you don’t have to keep private,” he said in his not-a-whisper voice again. 

“What, Pete? Obviously you’re trying to get at something,” Patrick finally said, and started to sit up. To his surprise, Pete squirmed away from him again, ducking his head over the side of the bed. 

“Okay, okay fine, but you can’t be mad. I was just – I wanted to look through your records. You know how you were saying that you and your dad sometimes go downtown and shop for vinyl on his weekends? I just wanted to see what sort of stuff...” 

His voice was muffled as his rooted through the pile of random shit under Patrick’s bed, but Patrick didn’t need to hear. As soon as Pete mentioned the records, Patrick had known. His mother hated his vinyl collection, thought of it as part of his connection with his dad. It made it easy to hide some stuff, because she never touched it. 

Pete emerged finally, clutching the worn copy of the old magazine Patrick had already known he’d found. Patrick had picked it up at a yard sale one weekend downtown where Lincoln Park bled into Lakeview, and the edge of Boystown. He’d been more curious than anything else, and had sandwiched it between copies of Grape Jam and Small Change, hoping that his dad wouldn’t notice. 

The old guy behind the makeshift card table had just winked at him and said, “That one’s on the house. Enjoy it in good health.” and his dad had laughed a little without really getting the joke. 

He wasn’t sure where it was from originally, or when, but he had guessed it was from a time when some stuff was still pretty discreet. The guy on the front was positioned against a brick wall, his shirt off and the fly of his jeans undone suggestively, but his head was cropped out of the photograph. All of the pictures were that way – not artsy, but anonymous, ashamed – even the more explicit ones inside. 

Patrick wasn’t sure how he felt about that, whether it made it seem more exciting or more pathetic, but it wasn’t the only skin magazine he had in his arsenal, for sure. Just the one that Pete had found. Of course. 

“That’s not – it’s not what you think,” he finally managed, in a tight voice. 

Pete had been a nice guy so far, and he was weird, but he was weird for a star soccer player with scene cred and a shitload of friends. Not weird like Patrick, with the clothes his mom still picked out for him and his lonely seat at the lunch table and his ability to recite the Prince catalog in chronological order by release date in the U.S. and the U.K. 

Pete just glanced over at him, his face still and as serious as Patrick had ever seen. 

“What do I think?” he asked, and he sounded genuinely curious. 

Patrick shrugged, and looked back up firmly at the ceiling. 

“I don’t know. I just – I just wanted to see, that’s all. It’s not – it’s nothing we have to _talk_ about,” he said, and hoped that maybe, just once, Pete might actually listen to him. Instead, Pete rolled over again, looming over Patrick with his stupid angled bangs hanging in his face. 

“That’s cool. I get it. A lot of people are curious. But it’s not – you don’t have to hide, you know, if that’s what you are.” 

He said it like it as the easiest thing in the world, like it didn’t matter any more than it mattered that Patrick liked to wear hats on stage or Andy hated to drum with a t-shirt on. 

“It would matter,” Patrick protested, “If we ever – if this thing ever gets off the ground. It could make things weird, like, with touring and later – if people knew . . .” he trailed off, uncertain. 

They all talked about how they wanted to be different, to do things in a new way, but it was hard if no one heard them in the first place because they were that weird band with the cocksucking lead singer. Besides, he wasn’t sure if that was even him, yet. His sex had mostly been imaginary, at this point, and his imaginary partners were sort of – a cast of thousands.

“Fuck that. The guys wouldn’t care. And everyone else, who needs them?” 

Pete’s eyes flashed dark as he said it, and the thing was, Patrick was pretty sure he meant it. 

“We do. If we want to be a band we do. And it’s – it’s not like, written in stone or anything. I was just – I wanted to see, I guess,” Patrick said softly. His cheeks were burning, and he noticed that one of the biggest stars was starting to peel off, just a little, just behind Pete’s left earlobe. 

“Well, that’s a little different, then. Take all the time you need to figure shit out,” Pete said in a much more normal voice.

Then, of course, he ruined it by leaning in and kissing Patrick softly on the mouth. His lips were dry, and a little chapped, and he tasted like Juicy Fruit gum. Patrick flailed his arms and pulled back as much as he could, finally landing an open-handed slap to the back of Pete’s head.

“Pete,” he sputtered, as he tried push Pete off the bed, “What the hell?” 

Pete looked bewildered, but not really angry. 

“I was trying to help you figure shit out,” he said, but it sounded more like a question. “I mean, I always thought it would be sort of cool to be gay. At least, you know, above the waist. I’m not too sure about the whole dick thing,” he added dubiously. 

Patrick groaned and kicked out at him until he finally fell off the bed. He rolled to his side to glare down at Pete, who had rolled onto his own back, his head pillowed by a mound of Patrick’s dirty laundry. 

“This,” he said in a firm voice, gesturing back and forth between them, “This I’ve already got figured out. Don’t ever kiss me again. Don’t. It’s – we’re in a band together, for Christ’s sake.” 

Pete – absurdly – stuck his tongue out at Patrick, but he still didn’t seem offended. 

“What? I am totally hot,” he said. Patrick flipped him off. 

“We’re in a band together,” he repeated. “Have you never watched Behind the Music? Keep your lips to yourself.” 

“Fine, “ he said, laughing a little, “But I at least want to hear all about your experimental phase. Oh, hey, look!” 

Patrick groaned again. 

“Jesus, what now?” he asked, afraid to look as Pete stuck his head under the bed again. 

“Bubbles! Patrick, has there been a jar of bubbles under your bed all this time? How could you keep something like this from me?” he demanded, holding up the barrel-shaped plastic jug and shaking it to see if there was any liquid still inside. 

Patrick rolled his eyes and straightened up on the bed, glancing up at the stars on the ceiling one more time before closing his eyes. At least Pete seemed to have moved on. 

A minute later, he was hit in face by a steady stream of bubbles, and he cracked open one eye carefully. 

“Hey, you know whatever you figure out, it’s cool, right?” Pete asked. Pete was kneeling beside the bed, looking down at him earnestly. Patrick was pretty sure he’d actually been waiting to see the whites of Patrick’s eyes. "We'll find a way to work it out." 

He nodded finally, and couldn’t help but smile back when Pete’s face broke out into his terrifying grin again. 

“But I’m not telling you any details about anything ever. And I’m going to start just leaving, like, random mouse traps and shit in all of my stuff, if you keep breaking in. Got it?” 

“Got it,” Pete agreed, but Patrick could see his fingers crossed behind his back exaggeratedly. 

“Gimme the bottle back," he said, grin back firmly in place, "I want to try.”


End file.
